tions of the past? The dull pain that nagged at her she tried to dismiss as mere unappeased sexual desire, but intelligence told her otherwise. Her reaction to James couldn’t simply be dismissed as merely a physical aberration. Listening to the regular chimes of the grandfather clock in the hall below, Tara was forced to admit the truth. No matter how much she might loathe and despise herself for it, she was still attracted to James, if only on a chemistry-based level which defied logic and intelligence. If mere sexual need had caused her reaction to him she would surely have experienced that need at least briefly during the seven years they had been apart, but she had not done so; not with Chas, not with anyone.
* * *
Heavy-eyed and drained, Tara forced herself to chat normally with Sue over breakfast. The younger girl was trying to persuade Tara to make another visit later in the month, but Tara steadfastly refused, pleading pressure of work. Mandy seemed to have recovered completely from her ordeal, although Tara was determined to keep her off school for a couple of days just to make sure. She was flirting outrageously with James, and just for a moment a shaft of jealousy pierced her. Tara was stunned. Jealous of her own daughter—a child? She could hardly believe it, and yet for all James’s attention to Mandy, Tara sensed that something inside him was held back. While the twins ate their breakfast Tara took the opportunity to ask Sue in a low voice if she had the number of a taxi firm.
‘A taxi?’ Sue stared at her. ‘But, Tara, what do you need a taxi for? Everything’s arranged. James will drive you back to London.’
‘There’s no need to put him to so much trouble,’ Tara demurred, her eyes clashing and locking with his across the width of the table, his smooth, ‘It’s no trouble, I have to drive to London anyway,’ making her clench her hands into small impotent fists. She would have thought he would jump at the opportunity to be rid of them, but for some machiavellian reason of his own he seemed determined to torment her still further.
‘Don’t you want to go with James?’ Simon enquired doubtfully when breakfast was over and she had taken the twins upstairs with her to put on their jackets. He was far too perceptive, she admitted to herself, too aware of adult undercurrents, and she was not sure it was good for him.
‘Not want to travel in a Rolls-Royce? Of course I do, silly!’ she said bracingly.
This time James made no demur when she slid into the back seat with the twins, and Tara ruthlessly suppressed what almost amounted to a stab of disappointment.
As they drew nearer to London, Mandy started to bombard James with questions, wanting to know where he lived and worked. He answered her patiently and yet his mouth was compressed. Tara could see it in the driving mirror. A hot wave of colour scalded her skin suddenly as she remembered how her mouth had touched it intimately—could it really only have been less than twenty-four hours ago?
Soon the familiarity of the London suburbs began to claim the twins’ excited attention. James remembered the street without needing directions and the Rolls came to a smooth halt outside their door.
Without a word he left his seat and came round to open their door, lifting Mandy from Tara’s side, the sleeve of his immaculately tailored business suit brushing against her bare arm, sending tiny frissons of awareness racing through her.
She wasn’t going to invite him in for a drink, she decided shakily as she slid towards the door. He was placing Mandy on her feet, but the little girl tugged on his sleeve as he released her, lifting her face trustingly as she demanded—and got—a kiss.
At her side Tara felt Simon wriggle impatiently. ‘Girls!’ he announced scornfully as James’s fingers curled warmly round Tara’s arm as he helped her out. ‘They’re soppy!’
‘Aren’t you going to kiss Mummy?’ Mandy demanded of James when they were all standing on the pavement, eyes rounding innocently as she looked from her mother’s flushed face to James’s set one.
‘You’re blushing,’ Simon accused Tara with mischievious glee. ‘Mandy, Mummy’s blushing!’
‘Stop it, you two,’ she commanded firmly. ‘Adults don’t go round kissing one another—both of you know that perfectly well.’
‘Uncle Chas kissed you,’ Mandy supplied trenchantly. ‘I saw him, when we were supposed to be in bed. I came down for a drink of water and he was kissing you.’
The look James gave her made her writhe in mortification. Tara could remember the incident quite vividly; Chas had come round unexpectedly one evening to discuss the following day’s shot—or so he had claimed. They had been sitting together on her shabby settee when he had abruptly taken her in his arms and started to kiss her. She had pushed him away almost immediately, but she had had no idea that Mandy had witnessed that brief, unwanted embrace.
‘God knows it’s none of my business,’ James said savagely to her in a low undertone, ‘but don’t you ever think of those kids instead of indulging in your own selfish pleasure, or do you want them to grow up knowing what you are and despising you for it? I’m not their father, but…’
Tara started to laugh hysterically. ‘That’s right,’ she told him in a high, almost unnatural voice. ‘You aren’t their father, and you aren’t my keeper!’ Before he could retaliate she pushed past him, shepherding the two curious children up the garden path. They hadn’t been near enough to catch the fiercely whispered exchange, but they were aware of some of the undercurrents flowing between the two adults. Not their father—God, if only he knew, Tara thought sickly when they were safely inside the house and the Rolls had moved smoothly away. And how dared he take that high moral tone with her when he was the one who had destroyed her innocence—no matter how freely she had given it—and who had then left her to the tender mercies of his wife; a woman who had derided and scorned her until she had stumbled from her presence weeping and humiliated, her pride torn to shreds and all her bright dreams for ever tarnished. And he had known, even encouraged Hilary to behave as she had—that was the thing she could never forgive. Lacking the courage to tell her that their brief affair was over, he had let Hilary do his dirty work for him, hiding behind the pretence of business affairs abroad, letting Hilary rip the bright fabric of her dreams into pitiful shreds. Tara writhed inwardly even now to remember how Hilary’s voice dripped venom as she told her how she and James had laughed about her pathetic adoration for him; how James had told her about their affair, deriding her innocence and inexperience.
‘Did you honestly think he meant any of it, you little fool?’ Hilary had mocked her. ‘My dear, James is a man, and like any other he’ll take what’s offered—especially when it’s offered as freely as your body was, but that’s all you were to him, my poor child—simply a body; a physical experience. Surely you must have realised that?’
And so Tara had left the house, her plea to James for counsel about the coming baby unspoken. It would have been hard enough to have confided in him believing he loved her, but knowing that she had been no more than a brief diversion; an amusement… Her pride had revolted, and even if James had been in England instead of America, and readily accessible, she knew that nothing would have dragged the truth from her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
FOR some reason Tara found it hard to settle back into her normal routine. Chas, as she had anticipated, was offhand and cutting with her on her first morning back at work, but she had learned to deal with his moods and for all his bouts of bad temper found him far easier to cope with than James. Perhaps because she was not emotionally involved, she admitted inwardly.
The twins too were taxing her patience. Both of them were now back at school, but Simon talked constantly of their weekend in the country while Mandy made constant references to James.
The situation came to a head one evening after they had been back for ten days. Tara had had to cope with a particularly aggravating Chas all day, his mood switching violently from sullen bitter silence to furious hectoring, coupled with an openly sexual harassment which had brought her own temper to boiling point,
Arriving late at school hadn’t helped. Over tea Simon was unusually withdrawn and quiet. Watching him push his food uneaten round his plate, Tara forced down her impatience, reminding herself that it wasn’t his fault that she had had a bad day.
‘Simon, what’s wrong?’ she asked him at last when Mandy had been excused from the table to go and watch a favourite television programme.
His stubbornly wooden, ‘Nothing’, accompanied by evasive eyes and pushed-out bottom lip, weren’t convincing, and real concern pierced her.
‘Come on,’ she said gently. ‘It can’t be that bad, can it? Have you had a quarrel with Davy?’